Fatigue shouldn’t be a factor

If you thought you voted - or at least read about the results of an election - in Newfoundland and Labrador often in 2015, you’d be correct.

The thought of any more ballots on the horizon is enough to give anyone voter fatigue.
But we do know there will be at least one more sometime within the next year, and it is an important one.
Newly minted Education Minister Dale Kirby said late last week that school board elections in the province will be held within the next year. The announcement came on the heels of former Newfoundland and Labrador Federation of School Councils president Peter Whittle’s questioning of the trustee election process.
In 2013, the former PC government amalgamated the province’s school board under one English district and one French district. An election was expected within a year from that announcement, but clearly it didn’t happen.
An elected school board is important for transparency for the province’s education system in ways that might affect you, even if you don’t have children in the school system, or don’t even have kids at all.
Other provinces have run into trouble with appointed boards in the past when it came to decisions about everything from deciding on curriculum to school closures - closures that can impact everyone in the communities affected.
There’s no doubt it’s best to have trustees with at least some measure of accountability to students, parents and staff of the schools they represent, and the way to ensure that accountability is by electing them.
It’s good to hear Kirby has committed to the trustee election process in such short order, and also that he’s focused on increasing voter turnout.
Fatigue may be a factor, but it doesn’t take much effort to vote. For the sake of this province’s students and future leaders, keep that in mind when this election rolls around.

The thought of any more ballots on the horizon is enough to give anyone voter fatigue.
But we do know there will be at least one more sometime within the next year, and it is an important one.
Newly minted Education Minister Dale Kirby said late last week that school board elections in the province will be held within the next year. The announcement came on the heels of former Newfoundland and Labrador Federation of School Councils president Peter Whittle’s questioning of the trustee election process.
In 2013, the former PC government amalgamated the province’s school board under one English district and one French district. An election was expected within a year from that announcement, but clearly it didn’t happen.
An elected school board is important for transparency for the province’s education system in ways that might affect you, even if you don’t have children in the school system, or don’t even have kids at all.
Other provinces have run into trouble with appointed boards in the past when it came to decisions about everything from deciding on curriculum to school closures - closures that can impact everyone in the communities affected.
There’s no doubt it’s best to have trustees with at least some measure of accountability to students, parents and staff of the schools they represent, and the way to ensure that accountability is by electing them.
It’s good to hear Kirby has committed to the trustee election process in such short order, and also that he’s focused on increasing voter turnout.
Fatigue may be a factor, but it doesn’t take much effort to vote. For the sake of this province’s students and future leaders, keep that in mind when this election rolls around.